


Dale and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

by Bk_Betty



Series: Cap Cam Verse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Dale Gets What He Deserves, Gen, Shrunkyclunks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 11:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13740333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bk_Betty/pseuds/Bk_Betty
Summary: In which Dale Reynolds, intrepid investigative reporter has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.





	Dale and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> You didn't think I would let Dale off the hook so easily, did you? Muahahahaha! 
> 
> Hat tip to [thatsmysecret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsmysecret/pseuds/thatsmysecret) for serving as my unsuspecting beta!

Dale was having a shitty day. It started when he woke up two hours late, which he still couldn’t understand. He was positive he set the alarm on his StarkPhone before going to sleep. But somehow, it didn’t go off and he had to scramble to get out the door. 

Naturally, since he was running late, the 6 train was experiencing delays. When he tried getting an Uber, the app kept glitching, putting his pickup location in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. 

Then he ended up with the world’s angriest Uber driver with the incongruous name of Happy. The idiot not only drove like a maniac, swearing and weaving in and out of traffic as if possessed by Satan himself, he had no fucking sense of direction. By the time Dale got to the paper, he was four hours late. 

When he finally made it to his desk, his editor John was waiting for him. 

“Nice of you to join us, Dale. Sorry if work is interrupting your personal life.”

Dale’s nerves were a little rattled from his Uber Ride of Doom™, so he was more than a bit on edge. 

“I don’t fucking need this right now, John!” he snapped, flopping into his desk chair. “I’ve just had the worst fucking morning and I haven’t even had my coffee yet!”

Dale sent up a silent thanks for the new fancy coffee machine in the break room.

“Well, it ain’t about to get any better. The new computerized beverage system is offline. No coffee for anyone. We’ve all been trekking over to Starbucks out of desperation.”

Dale fucking hated Starbucks! What they sold wasn’t coffee. It was overpriced, burnt bean dishwater. This day couldn't get any worse. 

“But I’m not here to hold your hand ‘cause you had a shitty morning. You’re late filing your Trevor Noah story.”

Dale was pretty sure this was what a heart attack felt like. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?! I sent you the piece before I left yesterday!”

John shook his head as he started walking back to his office. “I didn’t get it! If it’s not in my inbox by the end of the day, we’re gonna have a problem.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!” Dale shouted across the newsroom floor. 

John turned on his heels in his office doorway, a thunderous look on his face. 

“Your work has been getting more and more sloppy. I’ve got Pepper Goddamn Potts up my fucking ass about the Captain America boy toy story and some pencil pusher named Phil from our corporate office looking over all your pieces with a fine tooth comb. So, either you turn in a solid, fully _corroborated_ piece by the end of the day or you can start looking for a new job.”

Every head in the newsroom swiveled over to Dale as John slammed his door. How dare John talk to him like that! He was Dale Fucking Reynolds, the man who broke the Brangelina divorce story! He brought more hits and eyeballs to this shithole paper than all these assholes staring him down combined! He could walk out of this building and get a new job in the blink of an eye! He just happened to like working here. But fuck if he was going to let them disrespect him!

After he calmed down, he spent the better part of an hour trying to find the Noah piece. It was as if it vanished into thin air. It wasn’t in his network folder, on his DropBox Pro account or even on his backup thumb drive (which was oddly on top of his desk instead of its usual place in his drawer). 

Realizing he’d have to re-write the piece, he went searching for his Recordings folder on his laptop but couldn’t find it anywhere. He tried to remain calm as he checked his backup DropBox account but the folder wasn’t there either. All of his recorded interviews and article notes were gone! Dale clutched tightly to the sides of his desk, panic creeping up his spine. 

There were YEARS of recordings in that folder, including interviews with clients of Captain America’s little whore. If John was telling the truth, Pepper Potts would demand the paper turn over all of Dale’s supporting evidence and most of it was now gone. 

With a growing sense of dread, he searched his hard drive for the Barnes folder but came up empty. When he double checked the newspaper’s internal drive system, he couldn’t find anything, not even the final version of the story. All the photos, interviews and even the earlier drafts (with even more gratuitous details) were fucking gone! He wasn’t really surprised at this point when the backup folder on DropBox was also missing. This was bad. This was very fucking bad. 

He stumbled away from his desk, rushing to the bathroom to throw cold water on his face. As he stared at his reflection in the mirror, the severity of the situation hit him. Without the evidence, the newspaper would have to print a retraction. His name would be mud in the journalism community. No news outlet, media blog or even cable access show would touch him. Dale could feel his livelihood, his entire career slipping out of his hands. 

“You are Dale Fucking Reynolds!” he yelled at his reflection. “You are the best goddamn journalist in this entire building. Fuck it, in all of this fucking town! You have gotten out of worse scrapes in the past. You will NOT go down without a fight!”

Dale began to formulate a plan. He would reach out to all his sources again, get them on record one more time and create both digital and hard copies of their interviews. He would hunker down at his desk and bang out the Trevor Noah story _again_ and he would shove it down John’s throat. Dale gave himself another firm pep talk before heading back to his desk. Which is about the time his plan fell spectacularly apart. 

Dale reached out to his sources for both the Barnes and Trevor Noah story throughout the morning and early afternoon. Each and every one of them flat out refused to speak with him again, citing fear of being sued by Stark Industries. Somehow Pepper Potts had found out their identities and put the fear of God into them. Even the ones with photographs of Barnes claimed they couldn’t find the evidence on their computers. Dale’s day had managed to go from very bad to fucking catastrophic in the course of a few hours. 

After talking to his last source, his stomach violently protested Dale skipping breakfast. Needing a bit of fresh air, he went to the corner bodega to grab a sandwich. While scarfing it down at his desk, he got a call from his apartment building’s property management company. A woman with a nasally voice identified herself as the company bookkeeper Janice. She not too kindly informed Dale he was seven months behind on his rent. Which was fucking insane! He had automatic bill payment set up to send his rent check the first of every month. There was absolutely no way he could be behind on rent. He argued with her for the better part of an hour, his blood pressure climbing through the roof. 

“Our records indicate we haven’t received any payments from you in the last seven months,” Janice said in her smug little tone. 

“If that’s the case, why are you _just_ contacting me now?!” Dale screamed down his phone. 

“There was a glitch in our accounting software and we weren’t alerted to the non-payment until yesterday. We’re looking into it to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

“I have bank records that will confirm the Corcoran Group received and deposited my rent payments!” Dale fumed. There was no way he was going to let these people pull a fast one on him. He was an investigative reporter and with one article, he could burn their whole goddamn operation to the ground. 

“If you can produce verifiable evidence of payment in the next three days, we will accept it. Otherwise, you must pay the overdue balance in full or vacate your apartment in three days.”

Dale could almost swear his heart stopped beating for a few minutes. “WHAT?!?!?” 

“Your Super has posted a _Notice to Pay Rent or Quit_ on your door. This means you have three days to either pay the overdue amount in full or vacate the apartment. If you fail to do either option, we will be forced to start eviction proceedings.”

This could not be happening. He did not have the fucking time to deal with this shit. He knew he could pull up his bank account online and print off copies of the deposited rent checks but it was still a pain in the ass. 

“Fine. I will send over copies of the cancelled checks for the last seven rent payments. Where do I send it?” Dale seethed, wanting very much to reach out and strangle Janice. 

“We will need it to come from the bank directly. Contact your bank and let them know you need official proof of rent payment for the last seven months. They will know what to do. Have them send the documentation to 660 Madison Ave. 12th Floor, New York, NY, 10065. Do you need me to repeat that address?” 

Dale really did not have time for this fucking shit. At all. He was meeting with an informant later this afternoon for his exposé on Tom Hanks. So far, it wasn’t that salacious of an article but he was absolutely convinced this informant had hit pay dirt. At least that’s what the guy, Peter Quill, had promised him. This article could end up being bigger than his piece on the Barnes kid! So having to schlep over to the nearest Wells Fargo* would really fuck with his schedule. But if he didn’t want to get thrown out on the streets, he needed to give this woman her fucking proof of payment. 

“Fine! You’ll have your proof by tomorrow.”

“Great!” she said, annoyingly chipper. “Once I review the documentation and confirm rent was actually paid, I will update our records and let you know. Have a good day!” She hung up before Dale could tell her to go fuck herself. 

Looking at the time, Dale realized he wouldn’t be able to finish his Trevor Noah piece, go to the bank and meet with this Peter Quill idiot in Brooklyn. As he walked to the bank, he called Peter and rescheduled their meeting for tomorrow. Finally, something was going his way today! That all came to a screeching halt when he got to the bank. 

He first spoke to a teller who couldn’t find any record of payments to his property management company for the last seven months. After getting nowhere with the teller, Dale demanded to speak with the branch manager. The teller scurried away to the branch manager’s office. A _s he fucking should_ , Dale thought proudly to himself. Ten minutes later, a striking man approached the teller’s station.

“I’m Taylor Smith, the branch manager. How may I be of service?” he asked in a polite but aloof manner. 

“Well, Mr. Smith, it seems your branch hires incompetent idiots as tellers. I need proof of payment for my property management company and this moron,” Dale said, pointing at the teller standing behind Mr. Smith, “claims there are no such payments.”

“And what is the name of your property management company?” Mr. Smith asked, attention already on the computer at the teller’s desk.

“The Corcoran Group,” Dale spat out, barely keeping his anger in check. 

Mr. Smith nodded as his hands flew over the computer keyboard. He carefully reviewed the information on the screen, turning to speak with the teller in hushed tones. He returned to the computer, typed in another set of commands and made an annoying “hmmmm” noise. 

“I’m afraid my teller is correct. We have absolutely no record of any payment to The Corcoran Group over the last seven months. We would not be able to provide proof of something that doesn’t exist.” 

Dale was apoplectic, the gall of this man’s lies adding another layer to his rage. 

“Look, I don’t know what sort of bullshit you’re trying to pull, but I know for a FACT I’ve paid my rent every month! There is no way your ‘records’ are correct!” he screamed, face turning a violent shade of red. 

“Sir, if you don’t lower your voice, I’ll be forced to have security escort you off the premises,” Mr. Smith hissed. 

And that was it. Dale was trying to be nice, trying very hard not to let this day get to him. But this asshole’s condescending tone was the final straw. 

“Listen to me, you fucking dick bag, I am a respected investigative reporter! You do _not_ want to piss me off! Either you send this Janice bitch proof that I’ve paid my rent or I will bring down this whole fucking operation!”

Picking up the desk phone, Mr. Smith called security. “I’m afraid we have a volatile person at the counter, Jeffrey. Can you please come escort him out of the building.”

After being unceremoniously thrown out of the bank, a cold dread came over Dale. Without proof from his bank, Dale would have to cough up seven months worth of rent in three days. He did have some savings but nowhere near enough to cover that much back rent. He didn’t have very many friends and there was no way his mother or sister would help him out. If he didn’t come up with something fast, he would be out on the street by the end of the week. 

He was so preoccupied with his impending eviction that he didn’t notice it was well past 6pm. When he returned to his office, John was waiting for him along with Pepper Potts herself. 

“Hello Mr. Reynolds, I’m Virginia Potts… “ she began.

“I know who you are!” Dale seethed. John arched his eyebrow in warning while Ms. Potts simply gave him a disdainful smirk. 

“Well then, you must know why I’m here. Our lawyers have served the paper with a motion demanding all evidence of the James Barnes story be turned over at once.”

The low, throbbing headache Dale had been battling all day suddenly turned into a migraine. The panic in his chest must have shown because John’s face turned vicious. 

“You _do_ have the evidence, right Dale?” he snapped. 

Dale felt as if his heart was about to beat clear out of his body. This entire fucking day had been one disaster after another and now it was all closing in on him. He stumbled into a nearby chair, his vision becoming blurred. 

“I… uhm… I can’t seem to… uhm…. find my notes,” Dale mumbled, clutching at his chest. 

“You what?! John bellowed, advancing towards Dale with murder in his eyes. 

“I… uh… I don’t know what happened. I can’t find anything anywhere. It’s like someone hacked into my.... “ Dale stopped short, a chilling, frightening, utterly _awful_ realization hitting him. 

Every single thing that went wrong today was linked to technology in some way. His StarkPhone alarm not going off, the Uber app fucking up, the disappearance of _all_ his years of hard work, even the fuck up with his property management company. As John railed against him, accusing him of risking the paper’s future among other things, Dale looked up at Ms. Potts. She had a positively evil smile on her face as she watched Dale piecing everything together. With growing certainty, Dale came to the conclusion that he was going to be homeless and unemployed by the end of the week. Dale was only partially aware of John firing him and storming off towards his office. 

Ms. Potts straightened up, gathered her expensive bag and coat, and stepped into his personal space. 

“Think long and hard before you mess with anyone I love ever again,” she whispered in his ear before walking away. He was pretty sure she was humming the Imperial Death March under her breath. 

He had been royally screwed because of some two-bit, online whore who happened to be banging Captain America. Sitting in his chair, thinking back on this shit show of a day, Dale came to the conclusion that he was well and truly fucked. 

All thanks to Pepper Potts and Tony Stark.

**Author's Note:**

> I worked at Wells Fargo years ago but quit after a month because of their horribly unethical practices. So of course Dale would bank there. 
> 
> Also, thatsmysecret came up with the perfect reference for bank manager Mr. Smith - the [maître d'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDoYXZHK9aQ) from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.


End file.
